


whispers

by Rhyolite



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen, Ime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 12:28:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14402145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhyolite/pseuds/Rhyolite
Summary: Ime, the Rrrrrr, and Nyseme Ptem.





	whispers

The aptitudes were right. They always were, weren't they? They told you what you'd do for your two-hundred-odd years, and that was it. If they told you to blow glass like your parents and sisters, then you were a glassblower.

If they told you that you were destined to be a common soldier, a years-dead ancillary's replacement, then, well, you silenced the whispers of how the world could be better, and you took the place of an ancillary. 

Nyseme became good at burying the whispers of something not being right, and she did well enough. She rose to become One Amaat One, and she whispered with her decademates. Nothing about how things could be better here at Ime, far away from any palace, but inconsequential things: the birth of her sister's daughter, unimportant gossip.

She was lucky, she knew, that she'd been given a place on a ship near the planet she'd been born on. She shoved away the fact that nearly every other soldier on _Mercy of Sarrse_ had been as well, or the fact that the Amaat lieutenant came from a wealthy house but seemed utterly out of place in the military.

She didn't think about the conversations between the lieutenants and captain she heard. _You've already done nothing. If you say something now, they'll thank you and then shoot you for not doing anything sooner._

She hadn't been on watch when the unknown ship gated into existance so nearby, but she'd been awoken, her lieutenant ordered to take her decade, board the ship, and kill those who could not be made into ancillaries and capture those who could.

Amaat Lieutenant Seiaraan Osk had been killed by one of the humans onboard the ship, they said.

When the captain had ordered them to kill the aliens as well, a thousand whispers had flown through Nyseme's head. She breathed, glanced around. The other Amaats were clustered defensively around the bit of corridor where their lieutenant had been killed. She was, she thought dully, in commend; she was One Amaat One and their lieutenant was dead.

Another breath, a scan of the area, and she gestured for the Amaats to listen. "Our orders are," she began, feeling as if she was balancing upon a shard of blown glass, ready to break. "We are to shoot all those who can't be made into ancillaries. Even," a swallow. "The Rrrrrr."

A murmur from the other Amaats. Against every impulse, every bit of training, Amaat Four spoke. "The treaty," she said, throat dry, hesitant. "That would break the treaty."

Nods, glances to see if someone was coming. Agreement.

The youngest of them, Amaat Ten, bit her lip, said softly, almost under her breath. "Are we going to…"

Treason. But treason that they were all thinking.

Nyseme Ptem's lips curved against all reasoning, pictures (whispers) of exactly how she would-- they all would-- die if they refused an order clear as glass in her mind. 

"No," she said quietly. Then louder, "No, we're not going to break the treaty." Her heart beat faster.

She died for not killing everyone on that ship. She died in a palace, across from Anaander Mianaai, after telling the Lord of the Radch exactly what she thought of her and how she'd chosen not to see the corruption at Ime, and she drank the glass of poison like it was arrak, and died, a curse against Anaander Mianaai on her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me super happy. <3


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